Most vehicles now come standard with a remote control device, and the capabilities of that device are quickly growing. It can lock and unlock doors, open the trunk, start and stop the engine, roll up and down the windows, etc.
One problem commonly associated with such a device is the confirmation that the command has been properly received by the vehicle. If a user activates the device from inside a house and is not within visual distance from the vehicle, he or she cannot see whether the vehicle has been started or not. Some manufactures of these devices solve this problem using flashing Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) on the remote control device. However, having a single LED on the device that flashes as a confirmation that an acknowledgement signal has been received from the in-vehicle transceiver merely confirms that a signal has been received, not which one has been received. If the user has pushed the wrong button and unlocked the doors instead of starting the engine, the LED lights up to confirm that the vehicle had received a command. The user will never know, until reaching the vehicle, that the wrong signal has been sent. Alternatively, having a separate LED associated with each command on the device increases the required electronics and crowds the device. It is desirable to keep the device as small as possible, given that it is often carried around in a pocket or a purse and attached to a set of keys.
Another problem associated with this type of device is in receiving the confirmation signal. The handheld device transmits a signal while the user has his finger pressed on the command button and listens for a confirmation or acknowledgement signal after the button is released. The in-vehicle transceiver is designed such that it cannot receive the transmitted signal until the button is released. The handheld transceiver is designed to listen for a fixed time period, such as two seconds, for the confirmation signal. If the confirmation signal is not received within the 2 seconds, the user will not know whether the command has been received or not. The process must then be repeated until a confirmation is received. However, the first transmission may have been successful even if the confirmation signal was not received. A second press of the button may then cause the engine that was started by the first command to stop. The user would then think that the vehicle has been started when in fact, it has not.
Therefore, there is a need to improve the present remote control devices for vehicles to remediate the problems that exist with respect to receiving the confirmation signals, and informing the user of such a reception.